I need a Guru

[Candyman]

wanting to buy a used S and I’m terrified. I’ve read the horror stories on this site about dealing with Tesla used salespeople. Something about dropping $50k or more and not being able to ask questions much less see the car. I need help!!! The technology changes so fast within the model year that you have to know what month or even week a vehicle was manufactured.

My mission. I drive approximately 30,000 miles a year. Usually within Ohio. I need free supercharging. My daughter will hopefully be playing hockey for a team that practices 126 miles away, but one exit from a supercharger. I think I need a 90D maybe the 85D. I don’t need anything P or ludicrous. But what month? What car? What options?

I Need a GURU.

Any and all help is appreciated.

Lawrence

 

[Alset4S]

wanting to buy a used S and I’m terrified. I’ve read the horror stories on this site about dealing with Tesla used salespeople. Something about dropping $50k or more and not being able to ask questions much less see the car. I need help!!! The technology changes so fast within the model year that you have to know what month or even week a vehicle was manufactured.

My mission. I drive approximately 30,000 miles a year. Usually within Ohio. I need free supercharging. My daughter will hopefully be playing hockey for a team that practices 126 miles away, but one exit from a supercharger. I think I need a 90D maybe the 85D. I don’t need anything P or ludicrous. But what month? What car? What options?

I Need a GURU.

Any and all help is appreciated.

Lawrence

Lawrence, for free super charging you need a 2016 or older. 2016 is when they started the new nose late in the year. The 2016 cars with the old nose are all AP1 cars. The cars with the new nose were initially built with AP1 and with AP2 around October. The first decision IMO you should make is what is most important to you. Nose or AP. There's a lot of debate about AP1 vs AP2. AP1 users generally like it but are stuck. Tesla is not adding features to AP1. AP2 users in a lot of cases seem to have a love hate relationship with it. Tesla is putting it's resources into AP2 and above. Tesla says AP2 and above are capable of FSD or will be upgraded to support it. AP1 cannot. So if AP2 is the gotta have you're done. 2016, refresh with AP2 and free supercharing. Many refer to it as a Unicorn. If old nose is your gotta have You're also done. 2016 or older, old AP1 and free super charging. If new nose is the gotta have then both AP1 early 2016 and AP2 late 2016 are available.

Budget will also be a factor. The Unicorn is going to cost you more. Battery is also a budget item. In a given year a larger battery is going to cost more all things being equal. Battery size equals range sorta.

A typical owner is not going to exceed the range of the car on daily basis regardless of which battery they have. They'll recharge at home over night and awaken to a full charge. One would think that road trips would be where the extra range would make a difference and it does sorta.

But not as much or the way I thought. Before I bought this was in area I did a lot of research on and ran simulations using Better Route Planner. I used the trips I would drive the most. For me that's St Louis to Chicago, to Florida and to Tulsa. I planned the trips with a 75D and a 100D. I was surprised to see that it showed the exact same stops. 100D didn't allow me to skip any charges. Charging times were shorter in some cases but not that much. I in the end decided the extra cost was not worth it to save 10-15 minutes or so per charge on the five or six road trips I make a year YMMV. On over night trips I stay at hotels with Tesla destination charges and charge over night negating any difference in charge time. That's why I went with a 2016 75D Unicorn as mentioned above. I've taken my S on all the trips listed and have never had charging or range issues. That's not to say stop times are comparable to an ICE. They are not.

Good luck with your search. Decide what car and equipment are right for you and go find it. Be patient it's out there. Dealing with the Tesla sales process can be extremely frustrating. I finally decided to not buy from Tesla. I was able to inspect and drive the car and obtain service records before giving them any money. None of which would have been possible buying from Tesla.

No matter. Once you have your car you'll love it. Very few wish they had never bought.

 

[aesculus]

No matter. Once you have your car you'll love it. Very few wish they had never bought.

Nice summary

 

[Ole Capt]

Candy, go ahead and assume it’ll take at least a month to get your car and you will receive little in the way of communication. I placed my deposit on a CPO P90D on 4/6 and 16 days later it’s still on the same Manheim lot in Massachusetts with no driver assigned to it. They have no idea when it’ll even be on a truck then it has at least a week transport time.

I really believed I’d have the car in 2.5 to 3 weeks like I was told initially. Honestly I now think it’ll be 1.5 to 2 months after talking to Atlanta SC guy today. Make sure you know going in that over promise and under deliver is their game. Anything better than that and it’s a win for you.

 

[SMAlset]

If you think you think you might want FSD in the future you’d want AP2.5 so it can be swapped out later for HW3. Not sure if that would price you out of your desired price range though.

 

[ucmndd]

If you think you think you might want FSD in the future you’d want AP 2.0 or 2.5 so it can be swapped out later for HW3. Not sure if that would price you out of your desired price range though.

FTFY

 

[dannycamps]

There are a few things to consider as others have said. First, I believe every car manufactured prior to 1/2017 has free supercharging enabled (don't quote me on that).

Second, I would limit the search parameters to the following (based on what Tesla reps told me when I was looking as well as anecdotal things I heard from others):
Next Gen seats
AP 1.0 w/convenience features (not sure if you can get AP 2.0 in a car produced before 2017)
Dual motor (either 85D or 90D as the performance models have slightly less range and higher insurance premiums)

For me, I purchased an 85D which gets 267 miles on a full charge (240 at 90%). I was looking at 90Ds also but others here noted the early 90D batteries had some higher levels of degradation and the full charge range would be around 275. Didn't seem worth the extra cost for what might've amounted to an added 10 miles of range but YMMV.

 

[ewoodrick]

wanting to buy a used S and I’m terrified. I’ve read the horror stories on this site about dealing with Tesla used salespeople. Something about dropping $50k or more and not being able to ask questions much less see the car. I need help!!! The technology changes so fast within the model year that you have to know what month or even week a vehicle was manufactured.

My mission. I drive approximately 30,000 miles a year. Usually within Ohio. I need free supercharging. My daughter will hopefully be playing hockey for a team that practices 126 miles away, but one exit from a supercharger. I think I need a 90D maybe the 85D. I don’t need anything P or ludicrous. But what month? What car? What options?

I Need a GURU.

Any and all help is appreciated.

Lawrence

Assume that for every bad story you hear on the forums, there are over 1,000 good stories that never get written.
You don't need free Supercharging, I suspect that you haven't even calculated what it really costs.
Having charging at home is infinitely better than free Supercharging. I charge at home, I don't ever have to spend time at a Supercharger except when on the road. There's a Supercharger 10 miles away from me that I've never used.
It would be so much easier to carry your daughter to practice, watch her, and then drive all the way home, and plug in.

For a 252 mile trip, you'd really want a car that can do that with no more than 80% of the battery. And even in that case, you'd want to charge at home, so that you don't use the extra miles to get to the Supercharger. Also, that assumes that the car was at 90-100% when you leave to take her, did you drive any before then?

 

[zambono]

wanting to buy a used S and I’m terrified. I’ve read the horror stories on this site about dealing with Tesla used salespeople. Something about dropping $50k or more and not being able to ask questions much less see the car. I need help!!! The technology changes so fast within the model year that you have to know what month or even week a vehicle was manufactured.

My mission. I drive approximately 30,000 miles a year. Usually within Ohio. I need free supercharging. My daughter will hopefully be playing hockey for a team that practices 126 miles away, but one exit from a supercharger. I think I need a 90D maybe the 85D. I don’t need anything P or ludicrous. But what month? What car? What options?

I Need a GURU.

Any and all help is appreciated.

Lawrence

Get a newer than 2016 S, after refresh. Make sure it has AP enabled and that you have free supercharging. You will probably want the winter package and I would stay away from larger than 19" rims. I would also suggest a D model with at least the 90 battery but not a performance version, save plenty of $ and the D already has great performance.

 

[Mhoepfin]

My suggestion is a 2015 85D optioned with nextgen seats, sub zero, high fidelity, tech package or similar with AP1, panoramic roof, standard suspension. This is the sweet spot in terms of price, battery and power and features. Also 2015 is considered a good year manufacturing wise. Look for one with around 30k miles as that was likely a lease return and should have new/good tires and few cosmetic issues. Buy it from Tesla for the warranty.

 

[Struja]

Anecdotally... I have a 90D.

I bought mine CPO (it is refresh - which I prefer). My car has 75,000 km currently.

My 90% is 420km or 261 miles. AP1, which works great IMO. Best car I've ever owned... by a mile. CPO buying experience was a nightmare but doesn't matter to me because car is sooooooo good.

Not sure about the batter differences between 85D and 90D but I drive from Toronto to Michigan about 6-10 times a year (about 224 miles one way). I could make it without charging but I have 4 convenient chargers en route so I always stop at least once. Range is never an issue but certainly decreases badly in -30 conditions.

I have free Supercharging, which I pretty much only use and handful of times a year (you might be different). I pretty much charge at home 98% of the time.

85D or 90D... you can't go wrong IMO. Awesome car, just awesome.